


Sinister (Means Left)

by ArkadyFlowers



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crowley Was Raphael Before He Fell (Good Omens), Gen, Sauntering Vaguely Downwards (Good Omens), and asked a few too many questions, just hung out with the wrong people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 06:36:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19371373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArkadyFlowers/pseuds/ArkadyFlowers
Summary: Tiny snippet of pre-Fall meta ft. that Crowley-was-Raphael headcanon that's been going around.





	Sinister (Means Left)

They’ve existed forever and for no time at all. Time has no meaning yet. Earth is a glitter in God’s eye. But stars, stars are real. They’re real and beautiful and there are more of them every moment (not that moments exist yet).

There is a corner of creation that’s become an archangel’s pet project. The concept of the middle child is still an unknown one too, but he’s the archetype: the rules are made for the elder, the younger can get away with breaking them all and probably end up rewarded for most of it, and the middle children do what they do without much interference, and question the reactions to both sides of their sibling spectrum. When that gets boring, he retreats back to the stars.

Even for an archangel, it’s too much work for one holy hand, so by now there’s a small crew of Virtues helping out here and there. They take direction well— too well, if anything. Very few of them ever ask any questions, outside of double checking if a nebula should be this or that shade of a colour humanity will never be able to comprehend fully, or the precise luminance of a particular star. How can they not _question_ things? How can they not _wonder_?

How can they not look upon all of this and be _pleased_?

“ _You_ should be pleased by this creation,” Lucifer says from the left. “Pride, I think we’ll call it.”

“Sounds off,” says Gabriel, on the right.

Humans will assign allegorical meanings to these positionings, in years to come. _Sinister_ will mean _left_ in Latin. They always stand in this order, sometimes with Michael and Uriel in the gaps at positions two and four, like a buffer between the extremes who are already demonstrating what will later be named _hatred_ towards one another. It’s just natural. It’s what’s always been done.

“It’s probably not so bad in moderation,” Raphael says lightly. “And I am pretty fond of that galaxy just there.”

“That’s God’s creation,” Gabriel says primly.

“No it’s not. I did that.”

“Everything is God’s creation.”

Lucifer huffs. “What, so we don’t get any of the credit?”

“Probably not. I imagine it’s part of the great plan.”

“Maybe there isn’t a plan,” Raphael says. “Maybe She’s pantsing it.” (Or something to that effect, because pants don’t exist yet either.)

“Who’s this all even for, anyway?” Lucifer waves a hand and the arm of a spiral galaxy gets knocked off kilter.

Raphael rights it with a gentle nudge. “Don’t care. I just hope they look at it and ask why, in the end.”

* * *

It turns out it’s all for something She calls “humans”.

And that causes a war.

Lucifer takes the new concept of _pride_ and runs with it. When She asks the angels to bow to this new creation, he refuses. (Gabriel looks hesitant, but the younger ones always get away with everything. Michael doesn’t question; Michael never does. Uriel follows Michael’s lead in most things. Raphael wants to ask _why_ but the humans are actually sort of sweet, in a guileless little way, and he figures it won’t do any harm to go along with it. Just going along with it will prove to be a trait which gets him into an awful lot of trouble down the millennia, once ‘millennia’ is a concept.)

There is revolution. It takes aeons and moments, depending on how one prefers to count it. A third of the angels agree with Lucifer, and they’re cast out, and they fall and fall and fall. Raphael watches them go and thinks, _All he really did, when you get right down to it, was ask why they were so special._

In an eternity, in a flash, Lucifer is changed, and Heaven understands what it is to lose your grace.

Time is still a bit of a fuzzy thing. There’s the Garden of Eden, and there are humans — two of them now. And in that eternity-flash, Raphael doesn’t stop asking _why_. When Gabriel (ever more sanctimonious prick, especially since Lucifer— left) and Michael don’t provide any answers, he tries the Metatron. When the Metatron gets sick of him he leaves it for a not-time-yet and then goes straight for God’s office. Her door is locked.

When they stand in order now, there’s only Michael on Raphael’s left.

Some of his Virtues start to ask questions. Just one or two. Little ones. This is _good_. (It has to be Good, because they’re angels. Goes with the territory.)

“You need to stop that,” Gabriel says.

“Why?”

“Because we don’t question the plan.”

“They’re not questioning the plan. They’re asking me questions. Big difference.”

When the disagreements with Gabriel get worse, Michael slides around and inserts themself next to Uriel between the two, and at some point Raphael’s vaguely aware that he’s the one on the left of all of them now.

 _Sinister_ won’t be a word for roughly four millennia yet.

“You’re hanging about with all the wrong sorts of people,” Michael says. Too gently.

“I like ‘em. They’re the ones who can think.”

“We’re not supposed to think. We just do.”

“Boring.”

“You’re hurting them.”

That stings. “I’m making them better.”

“They’ll be hurt for it.”

“Then I’ll heal them.”

“You know if you— if you... you know... you’ll never see any of your Virtues again.”

“God’s Virtues, aren’t they?” He can’t resist needling at the slip-up.

Michael hums, their lips drawn in a tight line. “I know you love them.”

“Yeah, well. I don’t want to... you know. And anyway, I think there’s a place for serendipity in Creation. Fortuitous meetings, sort of thing.”

“You’re on very thin ice,” Michael says. Or words to that effect. There hasn’t been a lick of winter on Earth yet, so there isn’t a word for ice.

* * *

When ice breaks, it burns. It burns and burns for an eternity, for forever, for lifetimes, for a split-second.

“I didn’t mean to,” he tells Lucifer. “Misunderstanding. Big, huge misunderstanding. Almost funny really, see, the thing is—“

But Lucifer is different now. There’s nothing angelic in those eyes any more. And his touch is miraculous, but dark, oh so very very dark.

And Raphael thinks he’d rather die than become like him.

So he does.

Not literally. Not in the sense of eternal discorporation. But it’s God’s will, he thinks, that he doesn’t question so much any more, and maybe if he can stop asking questions he can go home; and Lucifer doesn’t want him here either, so he keeps well out of sight, and becomes something small and broken and low.

And when they say somebody should go up there and fuck around with the humans (they’ve been in Eden forever, for days, for no more than a moment), he jumps — or rather, slithers — at the chance. He remembers humans. Remembers liking them. Thinking they had a lot of potential. Maybe if _humans_ start asking questions God will understand it’s not so bad—?

That doesn’t seem to matter as much any more, and he can’t remember why.

Actually, he’s not sure he can really _clearly_ remember ever being anything more than this.

Not that it’s a bad form, or pair of forms, when you get down to it. He’s got the best wings in Hell, and takes pride in them, even though he’s well down the ranking and (probably hasn’t ever even spoken to Satan, probably not on his radar) Beelzebub doesn’t half give him some filthy looks sometimes. No idea why. Maybe the flies are just so irritating that Beelzebub is constantly in a shitty mood. Who wouldn’t be, in a damp basement like this? And Heaven’s all stuffy bastards and sanctimonious pricks, that’s what they say. Nah, Earth sounds like a sweet gig.

(Beelzebub doesn’t actually know either. There’s just something about that worm that’s _off_. The boss said so, and you don’t question the boss.)

And anyway, why _shouldn’t_ the humans know? It’s just tempting fate, really, putting the tree there. Should’ve put it somewhere well out of the way. Like the moon. Or another planet. Orbiting a distant, beautiful star. 4.3 light years away is one somebody really, _really_ loved, when they made it. Proud of it in fact. Alpha Centauri, they’ll call it, aeons from now. That was one of the really good ones, a particular personal triumph for— someone... someone who must have stood still in an endless field of bloody good stars, and maybe wondered _why_.

He made a nebula once, he knows that much. No— helped to. There were others there. Sounds about right for Heaven. Battalions of prissy angels all over the place. Better off out, probably.

He introduces himself to the Principality of the Eastern Gate as Crawly, and he’d almost swear he’s never been anything else that mattered.


End file.
